Have you played Deadly Premonition yet?

Go play Deadly Premonition!

The three movies to watch for this summer

Inspired by the past superbowl, herein, I shall post movie trailers of the movies that will turn out to be totally worth watching.
Start a betting pool! Amaze your friends!

Weekly review #1: A Scanner Darkly

Has it really been since Thursday that I posted last? Geez, not sure how that happened.
Anyway, as promised, here is my first weekly review.
I figured, since everything came to me sooner than I expected, it would be unfair to delay the requested stuff, so I bumped Macross Plus off the list, at least for the time being. So on to it! Spoilers and things of that nature are status quo, so cut link!

I CAN'T GET THIS SONG OUT OF MY HEAD AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

I hate youtube reviewers.

Sorry for leaving you people high and dry for a day, things happening, as per usual. I'm working on building an arcade stick! Might post pics when all the parts arrive and it's finished, if I may indulge in a moment of self congratulation.
But That's not until much later.

In the meantime, have also been watching youtube reviews of movies, tv shows, toys, whatever, mostly for research purposes, learning what to do and what not to do as far as reviewing stuff goes. It's kinda fun!
I'm not quite sure what the DOs are, but I've found a few patterns, a good number of things NOT to do, and that's what I'm going to focus on today. Names are hidden to protect the innocent. You know who you are!

1) Theme songs.
I hate these. Especially if it's a multi-part review, and they put it before every part. It's annoying, it's repetitive, it's a touch on the pretentious side because it assumes the audience is going to stick around for the thirty seconds of basically dead air to catch what you have to say, which is a dangerous assumption to make. 

2) Your ugly face
No one wants to see it! Especially if you're going to sit there and give us a recap or some background info. Give us slides and clips instead, it's more interesting to watch. Maybe a little bit at the beginning for introductions, but no more than thirty seconds.

3) Skits.
This is a huge pet peeve of mine. Now, I'm all for humor, don't get me wrong. But if you have to detract from your review for more than fifteen seconds to get a joke across, you're seriously doing it wrong. Deduct ten points for every consecutive fifteen seconds the skit lasts. Almost all the "big" names are guilty of this, and I absolutely hate it.


So what do you think? Have I missed anything? Let me know!

50 subscribers get!

Way more than I thought I'd get, I'll be honest!
The pressure is on, I guess. I've got to deliver the good stuff now! No more faffing about, nothing but quality from here on out!
Until then, have something I made out of sheer boredom. 

The weekend!

Got stuff happening this weekend, so no updates.
They will resume on Monday!

In the meantime, have something that will either blow your mind or slightly annoy you, depending on how old you are.

Let's get down to business / To defeat the huns!

I've broken out my old VCR, and I've been slowly going through my VHS tapes to see which ones still work after ten years of sitting in a dark, dank attic. Most of these are Disney movies, and most of them are from the 90s, movies I haven't seen in about that long. As an unforeseen result, I have grown a new appreciation for those movies, and especially their music.
Growing up, I liked Disney movies, but I always hated when they started singing. It just took me out of the experience.
Watching these movies, knowing what I know now, I realize how much of an idiot I was.
So! Now, because lists are easy and I am not feeling like making a twenty paragraph essay tonight on the importance of the three-act structure, or whatever, here is a list of my top five favorite Disney songs, in no particular order!

Boring stuff

The past couple days have been kinda hectic, with lots of family and school-related matters all happening at once, and I haven't been able to keep up with the blog as much as I'd like to. Again, just trying to get into the swing of things, a regular rhythm will manifest itself shortly!
I really REALLY appreciate all your support and comments and things! This is turning out to be a lot more successful than I thought it would be, and I can't thank you guys enough!

I haven't been completely absent, I promise! Working on gathering the materials I'll need for the requested reviews. Won't have all of them, but I should have the vast majority, and I'll work on getting the others as I can.
The first one is going to be one of my choosing, simply because it'll actually be available to review on time, I hope that's alright.
I will have a new review up every Saturday night/Sunday morning starting next Saturday, barring any unforeseen circumstances, like meteor strike or lottery winning.
The list so far will be;
Macross Plus (OVA)
A Scanner Darkly (Movie)
At The Mountains of Madness (Book)
Shameless, season 1 (UK version)

I'm excited because a lot of these things I hadn't even heard of before, and I love watching and reading new things.
If you have any requests for reviews, even more than one, please, request away! Anything to fill up the calendar! A favorite show you want the world (well, my tiny corner of it anyway) to know about? Something absolutely dreadful just to troll me? Anything! The only restriction is it can't be too long. I am only one man after all, and a mortal to boot.

Can someone please explain to me...

Why is it always the left eye? 

Just kinda chilling out

I think I'm going to take it easy on Sundays. Going to continue to follow the blogs I already follow, don't worry about that, but Sundays are going to be lighter days, content-wise, I think. Maybe Saturdays too. Maybe I'll take every other day off. I don't know yet! Still kinda thinking things through. Working out some kind of schedule. I want to post something meaningful every day, but there will be days, like the past couple in particular, when that's simply not going to be possible. As soon as I get a regular schedule worked out, I'll let you guys know!

In the meantime, I have an idea that I've been tossing around, you guys let me know what you think; I want there to be a degree of reader participation, because I am lazy and don't want to have to come up with something every single day! SO, what if you guys gave me something to review, be it a movie, a TV series, a book, something of that nature, and I'll go once a week, diving into that pool, and come out with something, long, comprehensive, and with lots of pictures. How does that sound?
It should be within reason, of course. Nothing super long, and I have the right to refuse to review anything, provided I can come up with a reasonable excuse, like I can't get access to it.
Let's get it started, then! Post something you'd like me to review, and after a little while, I will compose and post a list of things you guys want me to review.
Ready, go!

Why Rebuild of Evangelion 2 sucks: This will (Not) be short

Sorry this is late! I've had a lot of things going on, and I've still got a lot of kinks to work out. Again, I apologize for the tardiness! I'll try to prevent this in the future. 

Alright. Now on to the good stuff.
This is going to be long and full of spoilers for those of you who haven't seen either the original series or Rebuld, so I will put it under a jump break.

And now for something completely different

Tomorrow at some point, I will have a nice, lengthy post on one of the following

1. Why Neon Genesis Evangelion Rebuild sucks compared to the original
2. How The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is the root of all evil, while being pretty darned good by itself
3. The difference between Godzilla and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. 

One of those three, I haven't decided yet. If you think I should do one more than the others, please, let me know! Anything to help me decide. Or if you can think of something else entirely, that's cool too!
In the meantime, enjoy this witty British educational video. 

A Tale of Two Doctors

Gonna get this one out of the way early. It's been fermenting in my head for a while, and I need to get it out eventually! Please bare with me. 

I love Doctor Who.
Ever since I was a wee lad on my father's knee, hearing about the show's almost mystical properties during it's heyday, watching specials as they aired on PBS every so often, I was totally enamored with the concept, and was sorry that I was too young to partake in glory of the show's earlier incarnations. The advent of the internet has allowed me to alleviate that pain somewhat, but it's obvious time has not been kind to the early, low-budget serials.

Pictured: Pants-shitting fear

So, needless to say, I was absolutely ecstatic when the BBC allowed the show a modern-day revival in 2005. I watched every episode religiously. Though I have seen several episodes before that, I consider Christopher Eccleston to be my first Doctor. Alright, this post is getting long and this isn't a memoir, so I digress. Point is, my experience with Doctor Who is limited and largely retroactive. I love it to death, but I wasn't there at the time, with the exception of the show from 2005 onward. So, you see where my opinions, and the rest of this article are coming from.
There has been a debate that has been echoing across the halls of time and the internet, since about June of last year. A question that will no doubt be argued over until such a time as the role is inevitably represented with a new face; Tennant or Smith? Doctor 10 or 11? Which is the better Doctor? To which, the answer is actually very simple: Both!
Both David Tennant and Matt Smith are phenomenal actors, and easily comparable to each other. Had their roles been reversed, with Smith as the 10th doctor and Tennant as the 11th, so too would their names in each camps' respective arguments. When you argue over which doctor was the better doctor, what you're really doing is comparing each version of the character's actions and reactions to the various situations they've found themselves in. You're not comparing the actors, you're comparing the writers. Which is a fair thing to do; Both Tennant and Smith had very different head writers, with very different ways to portray The Doctor.
Russell T. Davies instigated the show's 2005 revival, and had a very story-driven style that drew heavily from the pop-culture tropes of the time, while Steven Moffat, who was responsible for the scripts of several award-winning episodes before his tenure as head writer in 2010, has a more character-driven style that's farther removed from contemporary television, and earnestly tries to be it's own beast.
So which writer was better?
Moffat, of course!
Not to downplay Davies at all; the show wouldn't be on the air right now if it wasn't for him, and his decisions to omit things like Gallifrey, and making the Doctor the veteran of the Great Time War early on were wise,   but he was more content to play in the sandbox left for him, crashing daleks and cybermen together, and generally allowing the doctor to be awesome, than add anything to the mythos of any real consequence. In the Davies written episodes, the Doctor himself is rarely faced with a moral quandary or serious problem beyond  "There is a monster, we must fight it!" With the possible exception of Rose, and even then not until long after she relinquished the position, the Doctor's companions were largely superfluous, serving as nothing more than audience surrogates. (Seriously, can you remember anything Martha did? I can't.)
His season finales were big on bombast but small on actual content, often relying on deus ex machina to end the episode, as opposed to a logical yet interesting conclusion, a particularly infamous example being the latter half of "Last of the Time Lords"

I regenerated for your sins

Moffat, on the other hand, seems much more interested in The Doctor as a concept than as a character, and playing with it, to varying degrees of success. This is particularly evident in the series 3 episode "Blink" and the series 2 episode "Girl in the Fireplace."
In the former, the Doctor himself takes up very little screen time, instead he relays instructions to one-off characters by, in one scene, holding a conversation through a 40 year time gap by using a video camera, several DVDs, and a transcription of the conversation he's currently having. 

Pictured: Pants-shitting fear

In the latter, a derelict ship causes the doctor to be an unwitting influence on a young girl's life. This same concept is revisited in the series 5 episode "The Eleventh hour" with the girl in that case being Amy, the Doctor's current companion.
And then there's River Song, a time traveler whose path crosses with the Doctor's almost exactly opposite his temporal path.  The first time we and The Doctor see her is the last time she sees him.
Amy herself is much more of her own character in series 5, as well, with her own strengths, a few times catching things the Doctor does not and acting upon them, and her own character flaws; at one point, she attempts to cheat on her fiance with The Doctor.
Again, did Martha do anything? Rose held a really big gun as an explosion went off behind her, that's something, right? Donna yelled a lot. None of Davies' companions were ever explored as thoroughly as Amy Pond.

Moffat was more content to think of the Doctor and his Tardis as a way to explore the idea of time travel and it's effect on people, in a way that hasn't been explored in Doctor Who before. Davies just wanted to catch the Doctor in another exciting situation. That's why Moffat is better than Davies. I can't wait for series 6. 

Stepping in front of the class

Hello! My name is Vincent and I've wanted to start a blog for quite some time.
I am a 22 year old English major and conspiring fiction writer. My ultimate goal is to be able to write scripts for, and direct movies.
This blog will be used to chronicle my thoughts and feelings having to do with what happens to be relevant (and many things that probably aren't so relevant) in those particular categories and fields. I will mostly do things like movie, book, and video game reviews, plot deconstructions and analysis, constructive criticism,  generalized hollywood rants, things of that nature.  This blog won't be limited exclusively to those things, but I will keep it as on topic as possible.  Occasionally, I'll use this blog as a sounding board for story ideas I may have; laying them bare for examination and dissection.
Now, granted, I'm no expert in the field, and probably never will be. I absolutely love criticism and feedback, so feel free to leave any feelings you may have, and I will respond to them if neccessary as quickly as possible.


Here we go!